Prysmian’s renewed credit facility includes environmental and social KPIs

Italian cabling giant Prysmian has renewed its €1,000 million long-term revolving credit facility, including environmental and social KPIs among the parameters that determine the financing conditions.

Prysmian reported on 13 July that it had signed the renewal of the €1,000 million long-term revolving credit facility sustainability-linked with a pool of Italian and international banks.

This five-year credit facility, which includes a six- and seven-year extension option, is set to contribute to further improving the company’s financial structure by extending the average maturity of its financing, while retaining the flexibility that the instrument offers.

According to Prysmian, the credit facility has been granted at optimized conditions, also in light of the investment-grade credit rating that Prysmian has been recently assigned by Standard & Poor’s.

In addition, with the aim of strengthening the integration of ESG factors into its strategy, Prysmian has chosen to include environmental and social KPIs among the parameters that determine the financing conditions.

The renewed revolving sustainability-linked credit facility is also linked to the decarbonization targets already defined (annual GHG emissions from 2023 to 2030), to the ratio of female white collars and executives hired versus total group hires, and to the number of sustainability audits performed on the supply chain.

“This renewed credit facility further strengthens Prysmian Group’s financial structure and highlights how the Group looks at sustainability as a true business driver. Prysmian is an important enabler in the ongoing Energy Transition, significantly contributing to the shift toward renewable power generation, which is key to decarbonization,” said Pier Francesco Facchini, Chief Financial Officer at Prysmian Group.

“At the same time, we have also decided to link this credit facility to important gender balance and people development targets, which are crucial pillars in our strategy. The outstanding terms of this revolving facility is a first significant recognition of our recently achieved investment grade rating.”

The pool of banks that participated in the transaction included the book-runners Banco BPM, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Crédit Agricole CIB, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca. ING acted as Documentation Agent, Intesa Sanpaolo as ESG Advisor and Mediobanca as Facility Agent.

Speaking about other company-related news, it is worth mentioning that Prysmian recently divulged its new near-term and net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets, set to enable it to reach its sustainability goals.

The Italian cabling giant also announced it is investing around €120 million in its plant in Pikkala, Finland, said to be the first cable plant in the world to have achieved the net-zero goal.